Showing posts with label Green Beret. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Green Beret. Show all posts

Thursday, July 02, 2020

02-Jul-20: In Washington, calling the Hashemite Kingdom to account for the murders of Americans

The three murdered Green Berets. From left: Staff Sgt. Kevin J. McEnroe, 30, of Tucson, Arizona. Army Sgt. 1st Class Matthew C. Lewellen, 27, of Lawrence, Kansas with his parents. Staff Sgt. James F. (Jimmy) Moriarty, 27, of Kerrville, Texas

We began writing here nearly four years ago about the painful battle of three Gold Star families whose United States Army Special Forces sons (usually called Green Berets) were gunned down in cold blood on a Jordanian air base.

You're invited to browse
Along the way, we have gotten to know the people behind the headlines. Their fineness and determination are striking. How surprising is this given how their sons turned out? Not very.

The three men were part of a larger group of Americans stationed at King Faisal Air Base, a Jordan military facility located at Al-Jafr in a remote south-eastern corner of the kingdom, roughly 300 km from the capital Amman. As a US military newspaper reported at the time:
The U.S. military typically maintains about 2,000 U.S. forces on the ground in Jordan to support training with the Jordanian military and operations against the Islamic State in neighboring Iraq and Syria.
Around noon on November 4, 2016, a Jordanian soldier standing guard at the gates to the base, wearing body armor and armed with a high-power rifle, shot the three of them dead at point blank range as they returned to their station from a day's operations. The Americans were traveling in unarmored vehicles, not wearing body armor, carrying only sidearms, and raising their hands in surrender as they called out in English and Arabic to the guard whom they evidently knew that they were friends, not hostile, not shooting. They were sitting ducks.

The Jordanian authorities quickly announced this was all one unfortunate misunderstanding and it appears the US government backed them up for a while. According to reports at the time, two of the elements of that "misunderstanding" were that the Americans' vehicle should have stopped and didn't. And that someone somewhere fired shots at something, causing the guard to do what he did.

Initial American media reports downplayed the circumstances. Here's how the New York Times reported it:
The Jordanian military said the trainers failed to stop as they approached a gate at the air base in the southern part of the country... A Jordanian military official, who declined to be identified discussing a matter that is now under investigation, said the trainers had tried to enter the base in a vehicle without heeding the orders of guards at the gate to stop... Jordanian officials said privately that initial indications suggested the shooting at the King Faisal air base near Al Jafr on Friday stemmed from some sort of confusion rather than deliberate targeting of the Americans. But American military officials had questions about this version of events. American soldiers certainly know to slow or stop at military base gates, whether in Jordan or anywhere else in the world. It was not clear whether the Americans who were killed were driving or being driven... Security experts in Washington and Amman were concerned that the shooting might reflect increasing radicalization in Jordan... [New York Times. November 4, 2016]
Then a security camera video clip was found, an astonishingly clear view of what actually happened. And the shooter, clearly a very simple man, was quickly convicted. The video was then made public (it's here) and most, though not all, of the Jordanian nonsense came to an end. 

Now to yesterday's news as reported by Associated Press (this is the Washington Post version). Please notice how the families have generously gotten behind our efforts to see Ahlam Tamimi who murdered our child, extradited to the US. We're extremely grateful to them for their invaluable backing:
Families of US troops slain in Jordan seek action
By Matthew Lee | AP
July 1, 2020 at 2:33 p.m. UTC

WASHINGTON — The families of three Special Forces troops slain by a Jordanian soldier at a military base in Jordan in 2016 are calling on Congress to suspend aid to the key U.S. Mideast partner until it extradites the killer.
The families are also joining an effort to press Jordan to extradite a woman convicted in Israel of a 2001 bombing that killed 15 people, including two Americans. In letters sent to lawmakers this week, the families say assistance to Jordan should be cut until Jordan addresses the cases.
The soldier, Marek al-Tuwayha, has already been convicted in Jordan and is serving life in prison for the murders, but the families say the sentence is inadequate because he will likely be released after 20 years. The woman convicted of the deadly attack on a pizzeria in Israel, Ahlam Aref Ahmad al-Tamimi, has lived freely in Jordan since she was released in a 2011 prisoner swap.
In their appeals to lawmakers, the families of the U.S. soldiers, Matthew Lewellen, of Missouri, Kevin McEnroe, of Arizona, and James Moriarty, of Texas, said Congress should withhold or reduce foreign aid to Jordan unless both cases are resolved.
The king of Jordan “should publicly apologize for the murders of their sons and explain why his country harbors a terrorist that killed Americans in the pizzeria bombing,” they said in a statement.
Jordan has rebuffed previous efforts to extradite al-Tamimi, citing double jeopardy considerations, but the Trump administration said recently it would consider withholding assistance as leverage to get Jordan to act on the matter and Jordan’s King Abdullah II has been told of the possibility, according to congressional aides.
“We support (al-Tamimi’s) extradition, along with a U.S. prosecution of the murderer of our sons,” said Moriarty’s father, James. “We also hope all of the families of Americans killed by Jordanians finally get some measure of justice. King Abdullah should remember this: We will not stop until we do.”
Al-Tuwayha is still in prison, and there are no known plans to release him. He has never apologized for the shooting at the King Faisal Air Base in November 2016, and his lawyer said there are no updates on the case. The lawyer, Subhi al-Mawwas, repeated al-Tuwayha’s claim in court that he opened fire because he thought the base was being attacked.
The U.S. has long been a major provider of aid to Jordan and, in early 2018, the administration signed a five-year, $6.4 billion aid agreement with the country that increased the annual amount of aid by $275 million to $1.3 billion.
Al-Tamimi is wanted by the U.S. on a charge of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against American nationals. The charge was filed under seal in 2013 and announced by the Justice Department four years later.
She was arrested by Israel weeks after the bombing and sentenced to 16 life terms but released in the 2011 Israel-Hamas prisoner swap and moved to Jordan. She has made frequent media appearances, expressing no remorse for the attack and saying she was pleased with the high death toll.
Among the victims of the attack was Malka Roth, a 15-year-old Israeli American girl, whose father, Arnold Roth, has led a campaign seeking al-Tamimi’s extradition.
Omar Akour in Amman, Jordan, contributed.
Our experience is that if you expect an appropriate and moral response, calling Jordan to account for murders done by its nationals is frustrating. But the pursuit of justice is a powerful incentive to keep working at it.

More power to the three Gold Star families.
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Friday, July 28, 2017

28-Jul-17: In Jordan, a choice among honor and pride and those lying security cameras

Innocent blood spilled by a Jordanian again and the word on
their minds - again - is "honor". Their own honor. [Image Source]
There's a lot to be learned about having a neighbour like Jordan. And about how truth is perceived when the issue is really about honor - Jordanian honor.

Three recent events triggered recent Jordanian responses that are worth trying to understand.
  • The cold-blooded murder of three US Green Berets
  • The stabbing attack inside the Israeli diplomatic residence
  • The unprovoked fatal shooting attack launched on the Temple Mount by three members of the same clan. 
We are focused on the first of those now: the November 4, 2016 murder of three Green Berets at the entrance to the King Faisal Air Base at al-Jafr in the desert of southern Jordan:
As one of the United States’ staunchest allies in the Middle East, the Jordanians and their military installations are no strangers to U.S. forces coming and going from their gates. Yet in the hours and initial weeks after the attack, Jordanian officials painted a murky picture of what had happened. Immediately following the shootout, they indicated that the Americans had run the gate, failing to stop as instructed. When U.S. officials questioned that account, Jordanian authorities suggested there had been an accidental discharge in one of the Americans’ vehicles that led to the shootout. ["Five minutes and a gunfight for survival: An anatomy of the attack on U.S. Green Berets in Jordan", Washington Post, July 27, 2017]
Relatively little attention was paid in the news media to the murders when they happened. But we certainly noticed. And wrote these posts:
The initial report carried by the New York Times downplayed the circumstances:
The Jordanian military said the trainers failed to stop as they approached a gate at the air base in the southern part of the country... A Jordanian military official, who declined to be identified discussing a matter that is now under investigation, said the trainers had tried to enter the base in a vehicle without heeding the orders of guards at the gate to stop... Jordanian officials said privately that initial indications suggested the shooting at the King Faisal air base near Al Jafr on Friday stemmed from some sort of confusion rather than deliberate targeting of the Americans. But American military officials had questions about this version of events. American soldiers certainly know to slow or stop at military base gates, whether in Jordan or anywhere else in the world. It was not clear whether the Americans who were killed were driving or being driven... Security experts in Washington and Amman were concerned that the shooting might reflect increasing radicalization in Jordan... [New York Times. November 4, 2016]
The first and absolutely irrefutable comment that has to be made is this: All the factual claims by the Jordanians now turn out to be nonsense.

This Jordanian security video footage [used to be here but now inexplicably removed from YouTube; we have found it here and here] of the entire sequence of events - which was not shown to the Jordanian military court or published before the trial - is chilling even without a sound track. Be warned that it makes for hard viewing.

But all the way back in November 2016. the Jordanians didn't think they had much to explain - or to apologize for. Except perhaps what they termed a "split-second" mistake might have been made by their man:
Jordanian officials originally blamed the U.S. troops for breaking protocol when trying to enter the military base, but an investigation later determined the soldiers “were acting in compliance with all procedures and accepted practices,” according to a statement from a U.S. Special Operations Command in March. The Green Berets were in al-Jafar to help train Syrian rebels fighting the Islamic State. ["Video shows Jordanian military guard gunning down three US Army Green Berets", The Blaze, July 26, 2017]
And as recently as March 6, 2017, Jordan's official voice in Washington DC - its ambassador, Dina Kawar, a career diplomat - wrote a confident, uncompromising rebuttal addressed to Congressman Ted Poe [letter online here - backup-archived here] denying any and all suggestions that Jordan or any Jordanian was to blame:
The incident was the result of implementation of military rules of engagement following hearing gunshot near the main entrance to the base and the subsequent belief of an ongoing attack. [The shooter] was tasked with swift response...
The shooter and the demands of his tribe: "Freedom for
the hero!" [Image Source]
But eventually, largely because of the determination of the families of the dead US soldiers, the shooter was put on trial in a Jordan military court.

Turns out there was no evidence of a split-second mistake. Instead the evidence shows in the clearest possible way
a six-minute hunt in which Abu Tayeh stalked the lightly armed Green Berets, despite repeated attempts by the Americans to show they were friendly... [Los Angeles Times, July 25, 2017]
Putting it cruelly but factually, the Green Berets were sitting ducks.

This past Sunday the shooter was convicted... leading to explosions of violent outrage on the part of his Jordanian tribesmen:
The soldier, 1st Sgt. Marik al-Tuwayha, pleaded not guilty and said he did not resent the Americans stationed at the base in al-Jafr, the Associated Press reports. He said he opened fire on the American convoy because they failed to stop at the gate, and he thought the base was under attack. After the verdict was read Tuwayha said, "I have all the respect for the king, but I was doing my job..." [NPR, July 17, 2017] 
His clan, the al-Haweitis, also called the al-Huwaytat, stand emphatically with him:
The text of an on-screen banner: "We continue our civil disobedience until justice is done for the hero. Freedom for the hero Maarek Abu Tayeh Al-Howeit."
Protester: "The trial that was held for our son, who defended the homeland and the honor of the Jordanian armed forces, which is within the soldiers' duty... He faced an American court, even though he was defending the homeland. The Americans were killed by the Free Syrian Army, which they were training at the King [sic] Faisal Air Base. It was not Maarek who did this..."
Another protester: "Everybody here understands that the court ruling was political, and had nothing to do with the legal system. The proof is that all the people of Jafr, all the eye-witnesses, saw that the clash was between the Americans and the Free Syrian Army they were training."
Yet another protester: "That soldier, Maarek Abu Tayeh, was defending the honor of Jordan, and the honor of the Jordanian armed forces. He did his duty in keeping with the rules of engagement of the Jordanian army. We had expected him to be acquitted, not to receive a life sentence..."
Woman: "All that Maarek did was his duty. He joined the army when he was 18... They know that he is brave. They know that he is a real man. He is loyal to the King and to the state. Does he deserve to be sentenced for life and to be denied of his mother?"
["Tribal Protest in Jordan following Conviction of Soldier for Murdering Three U.S. Green Berets", video clip with English translation by MEMRI, July 19, 2017; transcript here]
From the Jordanian security cam video: The Green Berets in that first
vehicle were killed instantly shortly after this image was
captured [Image Source]
Unfortunately for the Tuwayha/Al-Haweiti clan, that Jordanian security camera we mentioned above captured a six minute long high definition video record of the killings.

That video was released a few days ago in order, it seems, to shut down the tribe's protests. That might prove to be hopelessly optimistic.

Here's what the people at the New York Times ["U.S. Soldier Who Survived Shootout in Jordan Tells His Story", NYT, July 25, 2017] saw when they watched it:
  • Jordanian officials at first portrayed the episode as an accident and blamed the Americans, saying that they had broken the protocol for approaching the base, and later saying that they had accidentally fired a weapon, leading the Jordanian guard to believe he was under attack.
  • But surveillance video released by the Jordanian military on Monday and an interview with the 30-year-old American staff sergeant who survived the shootout shows a far more troubling scene: a five-minute clash during which the Americans fired back, crouched behind barriers and waved their hands desperately to stop the shooting, before the Jordanian charged with an assault rifle to try to finish them off.
  • The episode has sent a chill through the normally warm relations between the United States and Jordan, one of its closest Arab allies, and spurred protests in Jordan by members of the gunman’s influential tribe, who believe he is being punished to placate a powerful ally....
  • Training missions at the military base in Jordan had become so routine that the American Special Forces soldiers there wore baseball caps instead of helmets. Most of them had been in a war zone, and Jordan felt far from one. But as their convoy crept toward an entry gate on a sweltering Friday in November, gunshots erupted from a guard post, inciting a shootout that killed three Americans, drove a wedge between crucial allies and ended with a 39-year-old Jordanian soldier sentenced to life in prison for murder.
  • “We kept yelling in English and Arabic, saying we were friends. And he kept shooting,” said the lone American soldier to survive the attack, speaking publicly for the first time about that day. “Eventually, we realized it wasn’t an accident.”
  • The gunman, First Sgt. Ma’arik al-Tawayha, a member of the Jordanian Air Force, was wounded in the fight and sentenced last week by a Jordanian military court to life in prison for the killings of Staff Sgt. Matthew C. Lewellen, 27, of Kirksville, Mo.; Staff Sgt. Kevin J. McEnroe, 30, of Tucson; and Staff Sgt. James F. Moriarty, 27, of Kerrville, Tex.
  • The soldier who survived reviewed the video with a reporter from The New York Times on Monday evening, helping to piece together what took place that day. “We were just terrified and confused,” he said. “We didn’t know what was happening, or why, or how many guys were going to come after us.”
  • The video first shows a stark desert road leading to a gate to the King Faisal Air Base in the southern Jordanian town of Al Jafr, where the American soldiers were training Syrian rebels as part of a covert program run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Four trucks are returning from morning mortar training and slowly approach the gate as a Jordanian soldier removes two roadblocks. Standing just off camera was Sergeant Tawayha, a familiar presence at the base, who had probably seen Special Forces pass through the gate twice a day, according to the staff sergeant.
  • For reasons still in dispute, Sergeant Tawayha suddenly began to fire, peppering the second truck with at least 30 shots at close range, killing Sergeant Lewellen and Sergeant McEnroe.
  • The video has no sound, but the staff sergeant said the gunfire that followed was punctuated with screaming from both sides, with the gunman telling them to put their hands up, and the Americans yelling back that they are friends. To try to appease the gunman, they pop their heads up, raising their arms without their guns to indicate a cease-fire, then duck quickly as explosions of dust show bullets hitting the barricade inches from their heads. “I put my gun down, raised my hands a little and he took a shot at me,” the staff sergeant said. “That is when we decided this probably was not an accident.”
  • The soldiers were trapped... “We were trying to wave and we’re getting shot at,” the staff sergeant said. “I gave up with trying to figure stuff out and told him we should just try to kill this guy.” Both had two full magazines left — a total of 60 rounds — but they needed a better defensive position. After nearly four minutes, they sprinted behind their trucks to other concrete barriers farther from the gate... The video shows Sergeant Tawayha run toward the trucks with his rifle leveled. He hides behind the first truck, firing at the Americans, then walks to the second, slowly trying to flank them. Finally, Sergeant Tawayha rushes the Americans with a burst of fire. Both Americans fire their pistols at point blank range, but Sergeant Tawayha shoots Sergeant Moriarty, who slumps to his knees, then collapses...
  • They kept yelling in Arabic and English that they were friends and offered to go away if the guard stopped shooting, but clouds of dust continued to explode as shots hit the barricades.
There are societies and cultures where a high-resolution video record would have an influence on what people understand actually happened. But not in Jordan and not for these Jordanians:
The release has done little to calm Sergeant Tawayha’s tribe, the Howeitat... Many still believe that Sergeant Tawayha was doing his duty and is being punished to please the United States... “It is not right, but our government is looking for cash and they’ll do anything to get it [from the Americans presumably],” his brother, Abdul-Rahman Abu Tayeh, said in an interview... “But since the ruling, they are not welcome here.” [The bullet points above are all direct quotes from "U.S. Soldier Who Survived Shootout in Jordan Tells His Story", New York Times, July 25, 2017] 
The heavily-armed Jordanian kills three of his country's guests, men whom he encountered daily in his work as a guard, while they - for all practical purposes unarmed and lacking armor - shouted "We're Americans! We're friendly!"

And it's his people - the gunman's backers - who are furious, raging, demanding justice.

Sergeant Tawayha's story is shown to be self-serving, exaggerated, inaccurate, impossible, wrong. But for the Jordanians, all that is of no significance. They want vengeance from those he murdered. And it's they themselves who have been wronged in their way of looking at things.

On that note, please - if you haven't already - see what we wrote here yesterday ["26-Jul-17: We listened carefully to Jordan's minister and we have 10 questions"]. It addresses the painful issue of the yawning chasm between Jordan's aggressive demands for justice and morality and (let's not forget) honor, and the justice and morality and lack of elementary respect the Hashemite Kingdom actually practices.

[Image Source: Stars and Stripes]
UPDATE December 27, 2018: We have come across a painful and awkward, but extraordinarily revealing, video on YouTube [here], evidently posted there by people friendly with the families of the three murdered US Green Berets.

The video captures the full conversation conducted at a private meeting between Her Excellency Dina Kawar, Ambassador of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to the United States, and Brian McEnroe, the father of slain US Green Beret Staff Sgt. Kevin McEnroe.

The three families are currently suing the government of Jordan: see "Families of slain Green Berets sue Jordan, charging a cover-up attempt in 2016 deaths", Stars and Stripes, November 16, 2018.
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Monday, May 29, 2017

29-May-17: In Jordan, lives, deaths and separating truth from politically-correct illusions

Jim Moriarty [Image Source: Houston Chronicle]
Before readers drill down into the extracts below from a very moving Memorial Day feature article in the Houston Chronicle, they might want to get acquainted with the background.

We laid it out a few weeks ago - see "28-Apr-17: Calling the Jordanians to account for the cold-blooded murder of three Green Berets".

In last month's piece we wrote that we are honored to know Jim Moriarty, the father of one of three US Special Forces servicemen whose deaths - while serving the United States on the territory of one its supposed allies in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan during November 2016 - have barely been reported. We actually did write about the killings at the time they happened. And - as we noted a month ago - it turns out our predictions at the time were not far from the mark: "18-Nov-16: American service personnel killings in the Mid East get scant reporting and even less comprehension".

Mr Moriarty served his country via three tours of duty as a U.S. Marine in Vietnam, and is today a Houston attorney and a bereaved and understandably angry father.

This week he is the focus of an article by a Houston Chronicle reporter, Mike Glenn, published yesterday (Sunday) under the headline "Houston father searches for the truth about Green Beret son's death in Jordan".

Some verbatim extracts:
  • When Jimmy Moriarty brought up the idea of enlisting in the Army to become a member of the elite Special Forces, his father was skeptical. "He's the world sweetest kid, but they're just going to eat him for breakfast," Houston attorney James Moriarty recalled thinking to himself about his son and namesake. "In hindsight, I was such an idiot," Moriarty said. Jimmy Moriarty qualified for the Special Forces and made it though several other demanding training programs during his three years as a Green Beret... 
  • On Nov. 4, his only son, Staff Sgt. James Moriarty, 27, was one of three Special Forces soldiers fatally ambushed by a guard at the front gate of the austere and isolated King Faisal Air Basein Jordan, about 190 miles east of the nation's capital, Amman...
  • Now, the still angry and grieving elder Moriarty is on his own mission - more critical than any he undertook as a combat Marine in Vietnam or later as a high-powered lawyer going up against corporate giants like Shell Chemicals and DuPont. "I want to know who killed my son and why," he said.
  • From the outset, James Moriarty has believed Jordan, an ally of the U.S. in the war against terrorist organizations like ISIS, has not been honest about what happened. "Our 'friends' don't murder our children," he said.
  • In late February, Moriarty went to FBI headquarters in Washington to watch a security video taken at the Jordanian base. It showed what happened, he said, and is proof that his son and the other American soldiers did nothing to instigate the shootout...  "If I have to watch the video 5,000 times, I'll watch it," he said...
  • The Army said Jimmy acted with great valor by placing himself in harm's way. He was awarded several posthumous decorations, including the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and the Meritorious Service Medal.
  • Moriarty contends Jordan's government has lied from the beginning about what happened to his son and the others. Moriarty remains angry that almost a dozen Jordanian soldiers were nearby and failed to respond... The U.S. Army said Jordanian military officers at the base also prevented other American soldiers from assisting their fellow Green Berets – ostensibly because they feared for their safety. "They just sat there and watched it happen," Moriarty said.
  • In April, Moriarty's family received a letter from King Abdullah II of Jordan. It formally acknowledged that Jimmy and the other Green Berets did nothing to provoke the attack. "I can assure you that justice will take its full course and the perpetrator of the attack will be held fully accountable," the letter stated. However, Jimmy's father remains dissatisfied. "If these are our friends, we don't need enemies," Moriarty said.
The full text of the Houston Chronicle article provides difficult details of the circumstances in which the three Americans were killed. We urge you to read it all and to share.

As you do, please also think of the boastful, happy murderer of our daughter Malki who, illicitly shielded by the government of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, lives today free as a bird in Jordan's capital, hidden in plain sight as a fugitive from the US Department of Justice and as an FBI Most Wanted Terrorist. 

The murderer's name is Ahlam Tamimi and here are some recent posts we published about her and our struggle to get her extradited from Jordan to face trial in the United States. Jordan is refusing even though it is party to a binding extradition treaty signed with the US during Bill Clinton's presidency:
05-Apr-17: Abdullah in the White House today: Questions need to be asked | 01-Apr-17: Ahlam Tamimi, Most Wanted Terrorist - now in Arabic | 30-Mar-17: Years of pursuing a child's killer: Setbacks, challenges and a roller-coaster ride | 28-Mar-17: Terror, justice and the Hashemite king of Jordan | 23-Mar-17: Looking for justice in Jordan, Jerusalem and Washington | 21-Mar-17: Tamimi extradition: When it's claimed that something is illegal in Jordan... | 20-Mar-17: The Hashemite Kingdom's courts have spoken: The murdering FBI fugitive will not be handed over | 19-Mar-17: A thought about Jordan and its treaty obligations | 15-Mar-17: Sbarro and justice | 14-Mar-17: Will Jordan's lust for dead Jewish children cause problems with the US?
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Friday, April 28, 2017

28-Apr-17: Calling the Jordanians to account for the cold-blooded murder of three Green Berets

Jim Moriarty salutes his murdered son's coffin [Image Source]
[Please see the important update at the end of this post.]

It's now clear we are not alone in struggling to achieve justice over the objections, double-talk and calculated indifference of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Regular readers of our blog know that we have embarked on a battle to get Jordan to comply with its obligations under the 1995 Extradition Treaty it signed with the Clinton administration.

Within that framework, we - and the FBI and the Department of Justice - want to see them hand over our daughter's murderer, a Jordanian woman of 37 called Ahlam Tamimi, so that she can be put on trial in the United States for the most serious of offences. An article that appeared recently in the New York Jewish Week provides the background: "30-Mar-17: Years of pursuing a child's killer: Setbacks, challenges and a roller-coaster ride"

Tamimi was charged under US Federal law in July 2013 with a series of felonies arising from her masterminding the 2001 massacre-by-human-bomb at Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria. Our daughter Malki, 15, was killed in that grotesque act of savagery. Dozens more were killed or maimed. Those charges against Tamimi were in a sealed criminal complaint that remained secret until unsealed nearly four years later, on March 14, 2017. (Tamimi had been charged with multiple counts of murder under Israeli law a decade earlier and had pleaded guilty to all charges. She was sentenced to 16 terms of life imprisonment which came to an abrupt and premature end in the catastrophic Shalit Deal of 2011.)

We presume the US Department of Justice was attempting to negotiate with the Jordanians during those four years up until last month. The Jordanians eventually refused and have come up with several reasons.

Jordan's brazen approach to the US demand includes claiming 22 years after it was signed that the extradition agreement is unconstitutional. Or that it was never ratified (does anyone actually know who has to ratify it? And why can they not ratify it today?). Or that it is somehow not applicable to Jordanians. Whatever, since Jordan is owned and operated by a family whose origins are Saudi Arabian and who dominate a society whose population overwhelmingly identify as Palestinian Arabs, no one expects a serious response. What's significant is simply that Jordan is saying "no"... and that Tamimi is regarded as a national hero in Jordan because - and not despite the fact that - she committed those 2001 murders.

There's no doubt the extradition treaty was regarded as binding at an earlier stage (and still is by the Americans). Under King Hussein, who is no longer alive, Jordan handed over to the US one of the plotters of the first World Trade Center terror attack from 1993 for extradition and eventual imprisonment inside America's justice system.

Here's how that extradition from Jordan was reported:
Bomb Suspect Extradited to the U.S. From Jordan | August 03, 1995 | Los Angeles Times | Robin Wright and Ronald J. Ostrow
WASHINGTON — In a closely held operation, the FBI on Wednesday brought back from Jordan a heretofore unknown suspect in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, government sources disclosed. Eyad Ismail Najim, a Jordanian national, allegedly rode with Ramzi Ahmed Yousef in the bomb-packed van when it was driven into the underground parking lot of the trade center in New York City... Like Yousef, he left the United States shortly after the bomb went off on Feb. 26, 1993. The explosion killed six, injured more than 1,000 and caused tens of millions of dollars in damage. Yousef was brought back to the United States from Pakistan in another FBI covert operation last February. The two seizures of prominent suspects in the worst international terrorist attack ever to take place inside the United States rank among the biggest counter-terrorism successes ever achieved by U.S. law enforcement agencies. President Clinton is expected to issue a statement today heralding the U.S. victories against international terrorism, White House sources said.
Najim has been under sealed indictment since shortly after the other suspects were arrested and indicted, according to government sources. U.S. intelligence has long known where to find Najim but the FBI was unable to request extradition until a treaty was worked out with Jordan in March, the sources said. The final instruments of extradition were completed and exchanged last Saturday, allowing the FBI to proceed. The indictment had been sealed to ensure that Najim would not learn that he had been identified and try to flee again. While in Jordan, he was enrolled in school. Like many of the other trade center defendants, Najim is described as fairly young. "He thought he got away with it," one law enforcement official said. Najim was flown from Amman, the Jordanian capital, aboard a U.S. government plane and was expected to arrive at Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, N.Y., a former Air Force base, and then be taken to the FBI's New York office for processing.
Ismoil is imprisoned today at the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum (ADMAX) Facility in Florence, Colorado. He is due to be released on August 30, 2204 (not a typing error).

King Hussein's son, Abdullah II, has the powers of an absolute monarch. He could choose to see to it that his country complies with the extradition treaty. No constitution or law or customary practice would get in the way. So far, at least, he chooses to do nothing.

At the same time, he engages in self-congratulatory Tweets honoring his contribution to the fight against terrorists - like this:
Twitter source (April 5, 2017)
We were struck by the hubris, and asked him:
Twitter source (April 27, 2017)
No response of course. Nor did his foreign minister trouble himself to react to this:
Twitter source (April 28, 2017)
Recently we have had the honor of coming to know the father of one of three US Special Forces servicemen whose deaths while serving the United States on the territory of one its supposed allies in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan during November 2016 has barely been reported. We wrote about it at the time, and it turns out our predictions were not far from the mark: "18-Nov-16: American service personnel killings in the Mid East get scant reporting and even less comprehension".

The Hashemite royal couple visiting the Trump
White House, April 5, 2017 [Image Source] 
Jordan is holding the shooter and will not extradite him to the United States either.

Here is a first-person account, reproduced in full, written by Jim Moriarty, a man who served his country via three tours of duty as a U.S. Marine in Vietnam, and is today a Houston attorney and a bereaved and angry father. Mr Moriarty's son was one of the three murdered in Jordan.
Jordan must stand to account for deaths of U.S. soldiers | James R. Moriarty | Houston Chronicle (Associated Press) | March 30, 2017 
A Jordanian soldier killed my son Army Staff Sgt. James F. Moriarty and two of his Green Beret brothers as they returned at midday to King Faisal air base in Jordan on Nov. 4, 2016. Since then, the government of Jordan has repeatedly misled the world about the incident, which I believe was nothing less than murder. 
Jordan quickly blamed my son and his fallen brothers, Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Lewellen and Staff Sgt. Kevin McEnroe, for failing to properly stop at a guard gate as they returned to the base where they lived and worked. International news reports soon included the false Jordanian explanation. Then the Jordanian story changed. An "accidental" weapon discharge provoked the guard to open fire, officials said. An FBI investigation later showed that excuse to be false, too. 
Then three weeks ago, just hours before the Lewellen and McEnroe families and I went public in Washington with findings from our ongoing search for justice, Jordan's ambassador to the U.S. released a new statement. The ambassador for King Abdullah II - whose country receives more than $100 million per month in U.S. foreign aid - called the killings "tragic and very unfortunate" and "deplorable," but still claimed that "rules of engagement" were followed.
The letter infuriated our families. It also further united us. We reside in different geographical and political places, but our three families agree that honoring our sons' service and sacrifices must include finding the truth about what happened to them in Jordan and why. 
Because of the work of the U.S. Army and the FBI, we now know what happened to our sons. What we do not know is why it happened or when Jordan will be held accountable. On Feb. 28, the FBI showed us the haunting surveillance video of our sons' killings.
The video shows the truck driven by McEnroe slowly pulled up to the gate - just like any other day. The Jordanian soldier, wearing body armor and hidden in a concrete guardhouse behind camouflaged netting, opened fire without warning with an M-16 assault rifle. He was no more than 5 feet away. Bullet holes appeared in the view of the camera. Shattered glass flew.
The video also shows the chances of survival for McEnroe and Lewellen were almost zero. Caught completely by surprise attack, they died quickly in a hail of gunfire. My son Jimmy met a different fate. The Jordanian killer stalked him for minutes.
My son and another Green Beret, who would survive the attack, exited their trucks just in time to avoid being killed in the first bursts of gunfire. Armed only with pistols, they then spent the remaining six-and-a-half minutes of my son's life communicating with the soldier and other Jordanian soldiers in English and in Arabic. They soon realized they were in a fight to the death. The video shows Jimmy desperately waving and motioning to the five nearby Jordanian soldiers with whom they had worked that morning. Six other Jordanian gate guards did nothing to stop the assault.
The Jordanian soldier finally cornered the Green Beret survivor and my son. As the shooter came around a nearby truck, he caught the survivor by surprise. My son can be seen standing up in full view of the shooter and engaging him with his pistol. This move allowed the Green Beret to get to the Jordanian soldier's blind side and empty his pistol into gaps in his body armor, wounding him. My son took the bullets intended for the survivor and died moments later. The shooter, who was taken into custody by the Jordanian government, then was put into a medically induced coma. FBI investigators later conducted hours of questioning and the shooter gave yet another false explanation for the deaths: He heard "a loud noise" that he took for gunfire.
Americans are told that Jordan is our "ally." This incident raises troubling questions about that relationship - especially as Jordan refuses to accept responsibility for these deaths of U.S. troops or confirm what truly happened. Were I to speak directly with King Abdullah, I would remind him that my son called out in Arabic to his killer and other Jordanian soldiers, "We are Americans. We are friends." 
The time has come for the Jordanian government to finally account for these killings or risk its $1.6 billion foreign aid package. We want the killer of our sons prosecuted. We want the Jordanian government to apologize and publicly clear the names of our sons - and do everything possible to prevent such killings in the future. No more U.S. service members need to die at the hands of so-called American allies. 
King Abdullah II confers with the Chief Terror Officer of Hamas, Khaled
Meshaal, in Jordan [Image Source]
After a long period of asserting that the murderous attack by one of its soldiers was due to error by the Americans or, in a later variation, by the Jordanian, Jordan's version of events has just been re-adjusted once again:
After months of publicly defending the actions of a Jordanian guard who opened fire on a U.S. military convoy of Army Special Forces soldiers, killing three, Jordanian government officials have admitted that the shooter did not follow the military’s protocol and will face prosecution. Dana Daoud, a Jordanian Embassy spokeswoman, told The Washington Post that M’aarek Abu Tayeh — a member of the Jordanian king’s elite Hashemite force — will be “tried in a military court,” but she declined to comment on the nature of the charges against him or when a trial might occur... ["Jordan says guard who killed three U.S. soldiers did not follow rules of engagement", Washington Post, April 13, 2017]
Not much more needs to be said about Jordanian notions of justice that is not already obvious from previous encounters. 

 We're thinking in particular about the shabby matter of Ahmed Daqamseh, a Jordanian armed guard who shot to death in cold blood seven Israeli schoolgirls. He was released prematurely last month to a well-publicized Jordanian celebrity's welcome: "12-Mar-17: What a Jordanian hero and his admirers tell us about the likelihood of peace".

To end, a handful of other recent posts of ours concerning the Jordanians, their idea of justice and their refusal to extradite Ahlam Tamimi, the happy, proud and celebrated killer of our daughter:


UPDATE July 29, 2017: We have just posted an update ["28-Jul-17: In Jordan, a choice among honor and pride and those lying security cameras"] that looks at the outcome of a Jordanian criminal trial and its aftermath. There are two statements in it worth highlighting:
  1. All the factual claims by the Jordanians now turn out to be nonsense; and
  2. There's a lot to be learned about having a neighbour like Jordan. And about how truth is perceived when the issue is really about honor - Jordanian honor.
The whole sorry affair has gotten far less media attention and political analysis than it deserves. Perhaps now that the gunman is behind Jordanian bars, that will change. But our own experience with Jordanian frankness and respect for law, morality and strategic alliances suggests don't hold your breath.
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